The Paul Gruchow Foundation

Paul Gruchow has been called our contemporary Thoreau. 
 
In his book, THE NECESSITY OF EMPTY PLACES, Paul wrote: "There is no 
death so final as the death of a memory." When asked several months before his death, 
at age 56 -- a suicide born of depression – how he wanted to be remembered, he replied:
"Tell them I got up and said a few words."
 
His death, although a tragedy, is not so final as the death of our remembering him 
would be. He got up and said more than a few words, his enduring gift to us in
these confusing, angst provoking times. 
 
In remarkably lyrical essays, he described, argued, cajoled, reflected, intoned,
implored, praised, evoked, and sang. But most of all, he shared his soul: His great love
for small, rural communities and his upper midwestern roots; his discovery 
of the tall grass prairie and the mountains of the American West; his canoe trips into 
the northern Minnesota wilderness; his struggles with childhood trauma, depression 
and the mental health treatment system. 
 
His greatest virtue is his generosity to all of us: The thousands of words he has
left behind in six published books and hundreds of speeches, his personal journal, 
and several unpublished manuscripts. 

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Paul Gruchow was raised on a small, subsistence farm near Montevideo, Minnesota. 
He is the author of six published books on subjects ranging from the culture of 
the tall grass prairie to what we teach (and fail to teach) rural children -- work 
widely acclaimed for its lyrical prose and eloquence A respected and inspiring 
educator, Paul’s writer in residence involvements included St. Olaf and Concordia 
College, The University of Minnesota, The Lake Superior Studies Program, as well 
as lectures and workshops in public schools, churches, bookstores, government and 
environmental organizations. He has won both the Minnesota Book and Lifetime 
Achievement Awards, served on the board of The National Endowment For The Humanities, 
and in the 1980’s edited THE WORTHINGTON GLOBE -- an award winning newspaper. 
His unpublished work includes several natural history manuscripts, a personal journal, 
numerous lectures, poetry, fiction, and a compelling memoir exploring his struggle 
with depression and the mental health treatment system. Paul took his own life in 
Duluth, Minnesota on February 22, 2004, at the age of 56. 

ELEGY FOR PAUL GRUCHOW

You’ve been gone one week
wandering a remnant of prairie
crossing the still frozen lakes
of Minnesota
your snow shoe tracks disappearing
and no one can find you.
This morning I woke in pain
needing to hear your voice.
You aren’t coming back, old friend.
There is no return address
no way to reach you with a question:
How will we survive a time
in which even one brave as you
could not stop his hands
from shaking at a lectern?
I miss most your laughter -
how you held back nothing
your whole body convulsing
when we watched that movie
about the psychiatrist
driven mad by his patient -
how you writhed on the floor
in pure cathartic delight.
Today there are no words from you
but I will go on listening still,
this large silence your eloquence now.

Louis Martinelli

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